Suffolk U.: Corzine up 9 in real headscratcher

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

This poll seems... quite inexplicable.  But whatever, full disclosure even of bad polls, right?

http://www.politickernj.com/wallye/34486/poll-includes-all-12-gubernatorial-candidates-has-daggett-7

Gov. Jon Corzine leads Christopher Christie 42%-33% among likely voters, with 7% for Christopher Daggett, according to a Suffolk University poll released today.  Nine other independent candidates were included in the poll, with Jason Cullen, Alvin Lindsay and Gary Steele each receiving 1% of the vote.

Corzine has favorables of 45%-46%, while Christie is at 34%-46%.

[Tender Branson]

Hahaha. No, that's too good to be true.

He could be ahead by a few points, but not by 9.

Especially not among likely voters ...

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

When I talked to Quinnipiac University about doing just this a few weeks ago—including all 12 candidates in the same poll—they said they decided against it for reasons that it hurts the accuracy of the topline numbers.  Their 1997 poll of Whitman/McGreevey/Entire Field accurately showed the support of Murray Sabrin (L), but failed to come close to the end result with regard to McGreevey and Whitman's numbers.

Perhaps that can be said about this poll too: It's a good look into Daggett's real support (I'd say 7% is about spot-on at this point) without being a worthy D vs. R poll.

[Rowan]

So the other 12 Indies each get 1%? lulz

[Rowan]

Oh and Corzine's favorables are laughable too.

[Tender Branson]

So the other 12 Indies each get 1%? lulz

No, I guess the 3 candidates mentioned each received 1%, while the others were listed but got no support.

[Rowan]

Okay, but the number of undecideds is still absurd.

[Eraserhead]

Over what days was this poll taken?

[Tender Branson]

Over what days was this poll taken?

Politicsdaily.com has more on the poll:

A Suffolk University poll conducted Oct. 22-25 breaks away from the pack of recent New Jersey polls, which have all showed a close race, and says Gov. Jon Corzine is leading Republican Chris Christie by a comfortable 42 percent to 33 percent with independent Chris Daggett (who had for the first time notched 20 percent in a survey last week) now at 7 percent. Fourteen percent are undecided. The margin of error is 5 points.

Suffolk said Daggett may be suffering from the way the New Jersey ballot is set up, showing him on different places on the ballot depending on the county,

"Independent Chris Daggett struggles to be found on the ballot, which benefits Jon Corzine, whose campaign is peaking at the right time for him," said Suffolk's David Paleologos.

Seventy-two percent of voters said their minds were made up while 24 percent said they might change their minds. Both Christie and Corzine voters were in that range but only 56 percent of Daggett voters said they were definitely going to vote for him.

Among undecided voters, 25 percent said they would vote for Corzine if they had to make up their minds right now, 15 percent names Christie and 2 percent named Daggett. Fifty-five percent clung to being undecided.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10/26/new-poll-shows-corzine-with-comfortable-lead-in-nj/

[Eraserhead]

Hmm, taken in the wake of Obama's big appearance with him on the 21st...

It's probably just a bad poll but I'll certainly be looking forward to seeing the next batch of polls.

[Tender Branson]

The release is now out by Suffolk and as usual, they did their bellwether survey of a random county, this time Gloucester County on Oct. 24/25:

Bellwether analysis

The 2009 New Jersey bellwether of Gloucester County showed Corzine leading Christie 41 percent to 30 percent, with Daggett getting 11 percent.  However, Daggett is listed third on the Gloucester county ballots, right after Corzine and Christie, which may account for a slightly higher number than in the statewide poll, since Daggett is listed lower on the ballot in many of the other counties.  In the 2005 New Jersey governor’s race, each candidate’s Gloucester County results were within 1 percent of their statewide numbers.  Bellwether samples are designed to predict outcomes -- not margins -- and to supplement the Suffolk statewide polls.

In 2008, Suffolk University bellwethers were 95 percent accurate in predicting straight-up winners in both Democratic and Republican primaries, and, when in agreement with the statewide Suffolk polls of the respective states, were 100 percent accurate in predicting straight-up winners.

Methodology

The Suffolk University statewide poll was conducted Oct. 22 through Oct. 25, 2009.  The margin of error on the study of 400 is +/- 5 percent at a 95 percent level of confidence.  All respondents from the New Jersey statewide survey were likely voters. Separate from the statewide study, there were 350 respondents identified from Gloucester County on Oct. 24 and 25.

http://suffolk.edu/38934.html

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Concerning the races SU has been much more favorable to the Dems like Deval Patrick.  I wouldn't say that Corzine wins by this much, but its an indicator that Corzine might win 4-5 pts on election day.

[Tender Branson]

Now we have a problem:

I wanted to enter the poll into the database and you (WEB Dubois) did the same.

Now we have 2 polls in there but I already mailed Dave so he can remove one of them ...

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I deleted my poll so its fixed.

[Tender Branson]

I deleted my poll so its fixed.

Thx. How did you delete it ?

[Eraserhead]

lol. Classic Quincy.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I simply removed the data from the poll, when you make a thread to stop other uses from duplicating a poll, plse enter the poll along with the thread. It will make a lot of things easier.

[Tender Branson]

I simply removed the data from the poll, when you make a thread to stop other uses from duplicating a poll, plse enter the poll along with the thread. It will make a lot of things easier.

Yeah sure, but Mr. Moderate posted it earlier out of a news release and there were no official Suffolk numbers yet, so when the Suffolk release came out, I posted it, went to the database and entered "existing thread". I didn't know you were creating one at the same time ...

But anyway, good to know how to delete them, after putting hundreds of polls into this database ...

[Swing Voter]

I am having trouble believing that Christie has managed to blow such a significant lead in this race. Quite astonishing. No doubt, I prefer Dagget, but I do not see any reason for New Jersey voters to actually return Jon Corzine to office. If only Dagget had a chance to win, then we would have a real race on our hands!

[Franzl]

I am having trouble believing that Christie has managed to blow such a significant lead in this race. Quite astonishing. No doubt, I prefer Dagget, but I do not see any reason for New Jersey voters to actually return Jon Corzine to office. If only Dagget had a chance to win, then we would have a real race on our hands!

I feel the same way, I don't know if I could get myself to vote for Corzine if I lived in New Jersey, but I am somehow sickly rooting for him at this point. I don't have anything against Christie for that matter, but it would simply be so delightfully delicious if GOP confidence in NJ was once again fool's gold

[Swing Voter]

I am having trouble believing that Christie has managed to blow such a significant lead in this race. Quite astonishing. No doubt, I prefer Dagget, but I do not see any reason for New Jersey voters to actually return Jon Corzine to office. If only Dagget had a chance to win, then we would have a real race on our hands!

I feel the same way, I don't know if I could get myself to vote for Corzine if I lived in New Jersey, but I am somehow sickly rooting for him at this point. I don't have anything against Christie for that matter, but it would simply be so delightfully delicious if GOP confidence in NJ was once again fool's gold

From lurking, and posting a bit today, I think I might agree with you on quite a bit. I never thought Corzine would have been able to comeback even when Christie was facing Lonegan in the primary. Turns out all the claims that Corzine would end up winning were correct. At first, Dagget was hurting Corzine by taking the moderate liberal vote, now he is hurting Christie by usurping the anti-Corzine vote from all sides that aren't conservative Republicans.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Turns out all the claims that Corzine would end up winning were correct..

Well now, hold on.  This election hasn't happened yet.

[Rowan]

The director of the Monmouth poll calls this poll BS.

http://monmouthpoll.blogspot.com/2009/10/understanding-unaffiliated-voters.html

[Tender Branson]

The director of the Monmouth poll calls this poll BS.

http://monmouthpoll.blogspot.com/2009/10/understanding-unaffiliated-voters.html

Thats not the only problem of this poll. Looking through the crosstabs:

Corzine also leads 35-31-10 among Independents, while in almost every other poll Christie was ahead among Independents by 15-25.

So that poll is probably a crazy outlier.

[Tender Branson]

If we re-weight the Suffolk numbers to a more likely Exit Poll (45% DEM, 30% GOP, 25% IND):

Corzine: 44% (75% DEM, 6% GOP, 35% IND)
Christie: 35% (4% DEM, 86% GOP, 31% IND)
Daggett: 6% (4% DEM, 6% GOP, 10% IND)

So there isn't any change ...